Forging New Directions in Science and Environmental Politics and Policy: How Can Co-operation, Deliberation and Decision be Brought Together?

Author: Albrecht S.M.

Source: Environment, Development and Sustainability, Volume 3, Number 4, 2001 , pp. 323-341(19)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

Science, politics and environmental policy have for several years been encountering social and institutional as well as scientific challenges, national and international. The normative basis of all sciences is pressurised from three sides: by awareness of the public, who claims more transparency and sensibility from the scientific institutions regarding factual or possible impacts of science-based industrial progress; by the industries, which try to speed up and intensify the industrialisation of knowledge; and by the public policies, which want to see the sciences engaged in ways to mitigate unintended consequences of economic, ecological and social developments. At the same time, environmental policy is undergoing a tremendous sea change both in conceptual and practical matters. Since the Brundtland Report in 1987 and accelerated after UNCED 1992, environmental policy has been struggling to become a groundbreaking new paradigm for the capacity of resolving social and political issues as well. Any successful attempt to alter traditional institutional and mental structures in policy-making toward sustainability presupposes a renewed association of co-operation, deliberation and decision making. Results from theory of democracy, studies in science and technology, and evaluation studies in environmental policy and politics can be utilised for this context.

Keywords: democracy; economic and social impacts; environmental policy; science policy; technological innovations

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: University of Hamburg, Research Unit Technology Assessment on Biotechnology (BIOGUM), Ohnhorststreet 18, D 22609 Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany (e-mail: alwold5@aol.com fax: x 49. 40. 42 816 527 tel.: x 49. 40. 42 816 505 or 506)

Publication date: 2001-01-01

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• In this Subject: Forestry ,  Ecology ,  Business ,  Hydraulic & Environmental Engineering
• By this author: Albrecht S.M.

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